Flies on cooked spinach, dishes, rotisserie spits

The state temporarily shut two South Florida restaurants last week for issues ranging from flies landing on pizza and chicken stations to approximately 20 rodent droppings spotted behind kitchen ovens.

The South Florida Sun Sentinel typically highlights restaurant inspections conducted by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation in Broward and Palm Beach counties. We cull through inspections that happen weekly and spotlight places ordered shut for “high-priority violations,” such as improper food temperatures or dead cockroaches.

Sun Sentinel readers may browse full Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade county reports through our state inspection map, updated weekly (usually Mondays) with fresh data pulled from the Florida DBPR website.

Any restaurant that fails a state inspection must stay closed until it passes a follow-up.

If you spotted a possible violation and wish to file a complaint, contact Florida DBPR. (But please don’t contact us: The Sun Sentinel doesn’t inspect restaurants.)

Wood & Fire, Delray Beach

5199 W. Atlantic Ave.

April 25; reopened April 26

Ordered shut:

Why: 13 violations (eight high-priority), including three flies spotted landing “on cooked spinach cooling on prep table in pizza station,” “in prep area on clean dishes” and on a dining-room table. There were also two live cockroaches found, under a slicer and “on the floor in front of grill on cook line.”

The report also cited one “dead roach on dish machine,” one employee’s personal food “in flip-top cooler at pizza station” (which the pizza cook later removed) and “no doors or walls between pizza prep area and dining room/ bar” (as a possible hazard for “environmental cross contamination”).

The restaurant was ordered to stop selling and trash its chicken wings because of temperature abuse.

The restaurant reopened the next day after inspectors found zero new issues.